Jimmy Carter speaking to the press on his visit to Cuba.
Former United States President Jimmy Carter has criticized the U.S. Government’s policy toward Cuba.
Mr. Carter, who is in Havana, said he was satisfied with his meeting with Cuban Revolution leader Fidel Castro.
At a press conference at the Havana’s Convention Center on Thursday, Mr. Carter slammed the 1996 Helms-Burton Act, which reinforced the US economic, commercial and financial blockade against Cuba, and the unjust imprisonment of the five Cuban in the US since 1998.
The "embargo" he said, referring to the blockade, "is counterproductive and only punishes the Cuban people."
Mr. Carter said the Helms-Burton Act, which was passed after his term in office in 1977 to 1981, was a mistake to keep Cuba on the list of countries sponsoring terrorism.
"It is untrue that Cuba collaborates with terrorism," he said, calling it unreal.
The former US president described as unfair the sentences imposed upon Gerardo Hernández, Fernando González, Ramón Labañino, Antonio Guerrero and René González, internationally known as the Cuban Five, and said he was satisfied to have met with the mothers of two of them and the wives of three.
He wished for the Cuban Five’s prompt return "to their homes in Cuba" and said he was pleased by the good health of Fidel and the opportunity Cuban President Raul Castro gave him to visit Cuba again.
Mr. Carter, 86, the 39th president of the United States, arrived in Havana last Monday and visited several places of historical interest, and held meetings with Cuban authorities.
This was the second time in the country.
His first visit was in May, 2002, which made him the first former or sitting US President to travel to Cuba after the triumph of the Revolution in 1959.
(Source: CARICOM News Network)
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